Dear Socrates and Sheeprunner, please have a little empathy for the people of Pinders and Lewis Yard. For almost 100 years they have been exploited.

First by the GBPA, back in the day they could not stay in Freeport after dark. They were shut out of the good jobs given to foreigners.

Next by the oil companies placed right next to their homes. Polluting the air and water table.

Then by Goombay summer and now Carnival and the corruption of the PLP. Corrupting their moral fiber. Unwed teenage mothers having babies for multiple fathers. 1 in 50 now have aids.

Then by drugs during the drug trafficking 70's and 80's. While the government turned a blind eye.

Then by terrible schools. Average math grade is D-. Even the schools had to be moved from the settlement.

Followed by alcohol and now Bahamian made cigarettes...causing cancer and alcoholism.

Then by web shops on every corner taking what ever money is left.

Through out the years there have been devastating hurricanes. The people of Pinder's Point and Lewis Yard haven't recovered from the last 2 hurricanes. Many of the housed have not been rebuilt.

I encourage each Bahamian to go to Freeport and drive through this devasted area and see the blight for themselves. Then go to West End and see the blight of the water front. Essentially bars and webshops left standing.

Now Minister of the Environment Romauld Ferreira tells the residents to hire a QC at the cost of $1 million to fight the oil cartel???

There are no jobs in this settlement, there is no hope in this settlement, the government and big business have abandoned them.

The webshops, alcahol, cigarettes and oil industry are exploiting them.

I really feel sorry for them. They have been offered no hope, they have been offered no help.

Is this what the Bahamas has become?

God is not pleased.

I agree. Almost every oil producing country except for Norway is an economic or political basket case. Countries include Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq and Nigeria.

The Bahamas needs to stay clear of carbon industries (including Oban) which have the potential of critically damaging the most beautiful waters on earth for the sake of a couple of people making money.

Like the numbers industry, any tax revenue gain will not reduce the deficit but will be swallowed up by bigger and bigger government, corruption and waste.

Is the same Smithy of Resolve? Why haven't there been any actions based on the hundreds of millions lost at the BoB?

John, my point exactly. The laundry boy once called the Chinese every name in the book when he was on that board of the big hotel out west, now that he is the ruler he is singing their high praises. sounds like political vomit!

My point is that the cay has more billionaires per square mile than anywhere on earth. It will be interesting watching them stop the new money sucked from over the hill. Opps there goes the neighborhood.

"Tief From Tief God Lauf".

Da poor ga jus have to watch Lyford fight da numbers boys. So much cash from the 1,000 strong web shops over da hill and is every settlement on every family island. Almost every family has a gambling addict. Gambling on their cell phones all day and night. Money needs to go west, in da nicer areas while the economy over the hill is sucked dry. Once numbers reach da west even da rich ga get hook and suck dry.

Minnie's over the hill tax incentives = even less tax fa numbers.

This is the outcome of when the government doesn't listen to the people in the gambling referendum. To late now.

Regardless of there being a public or private registry of beneficial owners it will make little difference.

Our corporate engineers will simply put a corporation or a foundation or a trust as the beneficiary.

Our registry technology will be so bad it will take months for global regulators to get info on anything.

Don’t believe me? How many Suspicious Transaction Reports have led to anything since thier introduction in 2001? 0!

This will truly be amazing to watch. It is equal to the foolery surrounding Oban and now drilling for oil which will spoil arguable the most beautiful beaches and rich sea beds in the world.

Have any of these financial wizards in the PM's office ever done a walk about in Bain Town? Did they ever go into the homes without running water, the homes without electricity, the outside toilets, youth unemployment above 50%, teenage girls with babies in hand, everyone totting a $500+ phone, web shops on every corner, schools graduating students without adequate reading and writing skills?

How can you jump from this poor foundation to corporate formation, VAT registration, RPT exemptions, applications for economic relief, capital raising, imports, exports business licenses, accounting and bookkeeping???

The answer is you can't. Unless you are already a business in Bain Town with capital to invest. The only businesses I know that will be able to take full advantage of the tax exemptions are web shops.

This will be easily done by the web shops opening new corporations unrelated to numbers but financed via their numbers earnings.

So, who will benefit? Surely not the poor and disenfranchised residents of Bain Town. The more things change the more they get worse.

The government appears to already be concerned about "unintended consequences" of this policy.

You simply can't ring fence the web shops and out do zone wealthy landlords from participating without killing the project.

Money goes where money lies. Since 1967 and majority rule over the hill has gotten worser and worser.

With almost a thousand web shops and mostly non resident landlords and business owners, how can you stop the money leaving.

Minnie himself is from Bain Town. He now lives in the west. Good for him.

The same is true for shanty towns.

Unless you face the root causes of poverty and remove the businesses exploiting the poor, nothing will change. The rich will get richer and any one that's escapes poverty will immediately leave Bain Town but leave this tax exempt and highly profitable businesses in the area.

Another windfalll for the webshops who will reinvest their earnings made off the backs of poor over the hill people into over the hill businesses. Tax free.

With the ability of web financed businesses to trade tax free it will put legitimate businesses outside of over the hill at a competitive disadvantage.

But like web shops the profits of those businesses will not benefit the upgrading of over the hill. 5 years from now over the hill will be even poorer.

Keep in mind that 60% of the financial transactions over the hill currently occur in web shops.

No need to worry about Home Depot, Walmart or Costco coming to the Bahamas.

Our market is just too small, our barriers to free trade much to high, the Arawak Port monopoly with its preditory fees, our backwards banking system, slow legal system and xenophobic business community/politicians, poorly educated work force and impossibly high electricity costs is enough to deter theses world class companies from coming to the Bahamas.

DDK.

Unfortunately the fossil fuel cartel will suppress the development clean energy (solar, wind, ocean waves and geothermal) in a similar way that BEC suppressed clean energy for over half a century. FPL energy bills in Florida are down almost 50% over the last 10 years with the aggressive roll out of solar farms.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on the construction of an LNG generation plant, shipment and storage of LNG fuel to the Bahamas. Not to mention the spin off legal fees, banking loans, environment consultancy fees, government taxes, jobs etc. There is just too much foreign oil money coming in for our greedy politicians to ignore. Solar just can't compete with this cash flow. Not to mention that BEC has a monopoly on power generation for the entire Bahamas except in the Haitian Shanty Towns. There is no other developed country in the world where power generation is owned by the government or monopolized by one company. The foundation is being laid for a new system of abuse and corruption for the next 100 years built on LNG. Bahamians will continue to suffer for generations to come while a few (Bay St and Sunshine Boys) will continue to accumulate wealth beyond measure. Make no mistake where the political elites get their primary financing from.

There are also large safety risks involved with liquefied natural gas which the country discussed over 20 years ago when a project to build an LNG plant off the coast of Bimini was being discussed.

Remember the environmental concerns back then? This time it worse because the storage will be at Arawak Cay and ground transportation on Bay St to Clifton Pier will have its own safety risks.

Wow, we do have a short memory. Forget about Oban, Baha Mar etc. Lets move on to the next foreign investor disaster.